Snapchat Starts Charging Users For “Memories” Storage

The social media platform Snapchat announced new Memories Storage Plans last Friday. Users with more than 5 gigabytes of stored content in their accounts will be required to choose one of the paid plans within the next year.

According to Snapchat’s announcement, Memories—a feature launched in 2016 that allows users to save their images and videos—has now surpassed 1 trillion stored items. To support this growth, the company has decided to introduce paid storage options: 100GB or 250GB under the Snapchat+ plan, and 5TB under the new Snapchat Platinum plan.

“When we first launched Memories, we never expected it to grow to what it has become today,” explained Snapchat. “We want to make sure that our community can continue to store all of their Memories over the long term, so we are introducing new Memories Storage Plans to support Snapchatters with more than 5GB of Memories.”

Snapchat clarified that the change will not affect most users, since the “vast majority” do not exceed the new 5GB free storage limit, only those with significant amounts of stored content.

In May, Snapchat reported reaching over 400 million monthly users and introduced a new feature called Promoted Places to allow users and companies to interact in a new platform experience.

According to the New York Times, Snapchat has now reached 900 million monthly active users and  460 million daily active users, with most users aged between 18 and 34.

A company spokeswoman told the outlet on Wednesday that the introductory 100GB plan will cost $1.99 per month, the 250GB plan $3.99 per month, and the 5TB plan $14.99 per month, noting that prices may vary outside the United States.

The new pricing structure is similar to cloud storage models offered by companies such as Google—with Gmail and Drive—Dropbox, and Apple iCloud, though it is relatively uncommon among social media platforms.